12 Years a Slave is a 2013 British-American historical drama film, directed by British filmmaker Steve McQueen, which won the Oscar for the Best Picture at the 86th Academy Awards. Written by John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenplay of 12 Years a Slave is based on an 1853 autobiography of the same name by Solomon Northup. 12 Years a Slave can best be described as a propaganda film censuring stigmas of racism and slavery in the antebellum United States. Made in the vein of the Blaxploitation films of the ’70s, 12 Years a Slave is a powerful social commentary that poignantly depicts the heinous, racial exploitation of the Black people at the hands of their White masters who atrociously abuse them in more ways than any sane human being can possibly imagine.
McQueen is known to infuse his films with a singular sense of realism that inevitably elevates the subject matter, pushing it to grapple with far more complex motifs than what it seems set to achieve initially. While his first two films – Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011) – were more personal and less commercial, his third film, 12 Years a Slave, even though it has many of McQueen’s central elements of despair, solitude, lust, sadomasochism, etc., is his most accessible film. It’s a pity that McQueen eventually lost the Best Director Oscar to Alfonso Cuarón.
12 Years a Slave presents the heart-wrenching tale a free black man from Saratoga Springs, New York who is deceived, abducted and sold into slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the part with great conviction; the Oscar nomination was well deserved. Ejiofor is greatly supported by an all-star ensemble cast that includes the likes of Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, and Paul Giamatti.
And while Giamatti, Dano and others are quite impressive in their respective cameos, it is Fassbender who steals the show, and if there ever were any performance that merited an Oscar statuette, it’s Fassbender’s mesmerizing portrayal of Edwin Epps – a sadistic cotton planter who prides himself in being a “nigger breaker”. Alas, the Academy never fails to disappoint! Fassbender plays the challenging part with great aplomb, goes through a gamut of emotions, matching every ounce of unrestrained brutality with equal degrees of feebleness and abject vulnerability. Fassbender is easily one of the most talented among the current crop of international actors. Speaking of performances, Lupita Nyong’o deserve a special mention for her Oscar-winning portrayal of Patsey – a young female slave who is repeatedly raped and abused by Epps while working on his plantation.
12 Years a Slave is not an easy film to watch, especially for those who are repulsed by brutality and torture. The graphic content of the movie can easily unsettle an uninitiated moviegoer. The gory and ostentatious manner in which the movie depicts the brutal slavery practices like flagellation and whipping places it in a very unique category of exploitation-cum-propaganda films.
That being said, 12 Years a Slave is lifted by McQueen’s able direction, powerful performances delivered by the movie’s ensemble cast, a very different kind of a musical arrangement from Hans Zimmer bolstered by the use of western classical and American folk music, and Sean Bobbitt’s sumptuous cinematography. Slavery may be a matter of past but human oppression, especially of the weak, in its various forms continues to plague our world which makes 12 Years a Slave quite relevant even in today’s modern age. Serious viewers just cannot afford to miss it!
Rating: 8/10
Note: This review was originally published here